The Precautionary Principle in Action:
Bay Area Working Group Action locally and regionally

San Francisco

The Bay Area Working Group celebrated our first victory when the San Francisco Precautionary Principle Resolution passed on March 4th of 2003. The resolution was co-sponsored by 10 of the 11 members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. It set the stage for the passage of an ordinance on June 17th, 2003 which pulls together San Francisco's existing precautionary-based laws, including an arsenic-treated wood ordinance, an Integrated Pest Management plan, a healthy air ordinance, and a pilot Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Program, and codifies them as a San Francisco Environment Code Ordinance. Chapter one of the Environment Code is a statement mandating the adoption of the precautionary principle throughout the city and county of San Francisco.

Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown poses with BAWG members after signing the nation’s first Precautionay Principle Ordinance. From left to right, Janet Nudelman, The Breast Cancer Fund; Jeanne Rizzo, The Breast Cancer Fund; Former Mayor Willie Brown; Karen Pierce, Bayview Hunters Point Community Advocates; Davis Baltz, Commonweal.

The following victory ensued on June 14th, 2005, when the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously passed the Precautionary Purchasing Ordinance. This law puts the precautionary principle into action by requiring that the City of San Francisco use safer alternatives when purchasing commodities for the City. The ordinance was modeled after the pilot program, the Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Program, which was established in the San Francisco Environment Code Ordinance. The Precautionary Purchasing Ordinance mandates that the City of San Francisco consider environmental and health impacts when making a purchase, and that the City choose healthier, more sustainable alternatives to the products it buys. The Ordinance could apply to everything from computers to cleaning products, and the products that will be targeted by the ordinance will be determined using community input. This creates opportunities for San Francisco residents and workers to actively participate in the City purchasing process by helping to set purchasing priorities, identify concerns, and establish criteria.

The first "Targeted Product Categoies" list was approved by the San Francisco Commission on the Environment on March 28, 2006. The list contains ten broad categories of products purchased by the City and County of San Francisco. Products within these categories will be given the highest priority for environmentally preferable purchasing efforts within the next several years. The categories list was created with input from community members, business owners, government employees, and other stakeholders.

The Working Group is proud to spearhead this new program, which will help San Francisco leverage its $600 million purchasing power to shift our local economy toward the manufacture, use and disposal of products that are protective of public health and the environment.

This effort was actively supported by:

Supervisor Sophie Maxwell
San Francisco Department of the Environment
Mayor Gavin Newsom
BAWG member organizations
San Francisco Labor Council
San Francisco Department of Public Health
San Francisco Small Business Commission
San Francisco Human Rights Commission
San Francisco Commission on the Environment

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom signs Precautionary Principle Ordinance as Supervisor Sophie Maxwell looks on.

Learn More

Read press articles about the adoption of San Francisco's Precautionary Purchasing Ordinance.

• San Francisco Chronicle, "City must consider environmental impact of purchases", Rachel Gordon, June 18, 2005
• Listen to BAWG member Katie Silberman (Center for Environmental Health) discuss the Precautionary Principle on KQED's radio show Forum.
• Listen to Debbie Raphael, from San Francisco Department of the Environment, discuss the Precautionary Purchasing Ordinance on NPR.
• In the San Francisco Department of the Environment's White Paper on The Precautionary Principle, the City and County of San Francisco provide an analysis of the core components of the precautionary principle and how it has been incorporated into policy at the local, state and national level.
• Learn more about precautionary action in San Francisco at the San Francisco Department of the Environment website.

Oakland

The Bay Area Working Group is meeting with community groups and city leaders in Oakland to discuss how best to implement the precautionary principle. We have held a number of community forums to bring together individuals and organizations working on air quality, housing, neighborhood redevelopment, and other environmental justice and environmental health issues to learn from each other and brainstorm about how to move the precautionary principle forward in Oakland. Many groups have been implicitly working on a precautionary approach to health and environmental issues for years. By explicitly defining our diverse work as precautionary, we can come together to work towards a common goal.

Berkeley

The Berkeley Precautionary Principle Resolution passed on October 14th, 2003 by an 8-1 vote. The Resolution mandates a precautionary principle ordinance and an Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Program to be developed for the City of Berkeley within one year.

Throughout the next two years, a broad coalition of stakeholders including Berkeley residents, City staff and commissioners, community organizations, and BAWG members worked together to help move the ordinance and purchasing policy forward. An Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Policy was adopted on October 19, 2004. The Berkeley Precautionary Principle Ordinance passed on March 7, 2006 making Berkeley the second city in the nation (after San Francisco) to create such a policy. 

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